“We have a problem, my friend…”

Yesterday we drove Avi around Rincon a bit, culminating in a very long walk along the Atlantic side Rincon beach front. Avi attempted to crack open a coconut he found on the beach.

In the afternoon, we received a phone call from the Puerto Rico Phone Company installer. He was free a day early and wanted to come over. Though he said he spoke no English (and I explained that I spoke very little Spanish) I was able to communicate our ‘puenta del encuantro’; a bar 3 minutes drive from us, which he said he knew.

Unfortunately, though we successfully navigated the ‘get a contractor to our house’ challenge, we still have no phone. The available lines in the local box were corrupted and an engineer will need to sort them out. “This could take up to a month…it is too long my friend”, the installer said sadly. We are currently looking into how we might be able to speed up the process and also checking out alternatives to DSL (which was one of the main reasons for acquiring a phone line).

Quickly moving on to another contractor, Hector brought over a local window/door builder and installer to give us a quote for screens for our windows (to keep out the bugs at night) as well as for installing storm shutters. That transaction went very well and we should have screens on Friday!

I cooked for the first time last night: We had a fish curry with local peppers, rice and a spinach side dish. Postres (dessert) was guayaba y queso jelly roll.